Simply Writing Out Loud

Day five of our vacation was Lana's actual, real birthday! We got up super early in the morning and whipped up a delicious breakfast casserole, home fries, fruit and coffee for the birthday girl! We woke up all of her grand kids and in birth order had them deliver her breakfast in bed! Toby carried the tray, Hasselhof the coffee, Harry the food (look how disgusted he is by the plate. He could hardly look at it without gagging. He is such a food weirdo!), Chuck had the fruit, Chip had the utensils, The Penguin carried some salsa and The Queen finished it off with a daisy! They started singing Happy Birthday as they walked up the stairs. It was super cute and a great way to start the day!

She did try to blow our surprise by coming downstairs a little early. I quickly turned her around, smacked her on the butt and told her to go back to bed.

After a quick walk we gathered the younger kiddos and headed to the beach. The water was great!

Then we found a shark. A real one. The people fishing on the beach next to us had apparently caught it earlier in the morning and threw it back. He didn't survive. He was already dead and easy to snag with the net.

Everyone wanted to pose with him. Even people that were not related to us.

His skin felt like sandpaper. It was cool to see him up close, but we did all wonder where his momma was!

Look how calm the water was compared to the days before. It was like a lake out there. Not good for boogie boarding, but great for seeing fish and shells and other fun ocean creatures. Wait till you see what we caught on Day Six!

As part of the birthday girls celebration we headed to the docks to pick up some live crabs. We all LOVE crabs. Seriously. LOVE THEM! Especially the birthday girl.

They had some big ones, too! We got 72 of those babies!

Piled them all in our container. Ooohhhing and Aaahhing over them.

The kids love the crab tradition.

While we were at the seafood place, the others were decorating the condo with all of the Tiki decorations.

We got them home and the birthday girl got to work. She is an expert and we were not willing to risk ruining the crabs by trying to steam them for her. She was willing and happy to do the cooking!

Hello Mr. Crab.

Tons of Old Bay and Salt on top of them. Vinegar and Beer poured in the bottom of the pot. OMG....my mouth is watering just looking at these pictures and typing these words. YUM!!!! My favorite food of all time. Probably because I get it so rarely. And it was relatively healthy! And I didn't drink beer with crabs for the first time in 25 years. That was weird!

Then we dug in as platter after platter was steamed and laid out in front of us! Even Harry ate crabs! It was a first for him and I did go back through his shells and eat the meat he left behind, but I was super proud of him for digging in and giving it a try. He liked the meat, but wasn't sure about all that gunk you had to go through to get to it. We all ate our fill, then picked the rest for crab cakes.

After we stunk the house up good, we all needed some fresh air. These guys headed over to the basketball court to clear out their sinuses and get their game on. They came back sweaty as all get out and went and jumped in the pool.

The Nice One brought some coordinating outfits for her crew and we went down to the beach to take some family photos. Here are some of my favorites.

The evening was calm and relaxing. It was a fun day and I think the birthday girl had fun even though she had to cook!

The week was passing by very quickly!

We slept like rocks on our first night at the beach, but were up at dawn for coffee on the deck!

We met out here every morning. The beach house was actually a duplex with two full sides. That means we had both coffee pots perking pretty early in the morning.

Our Lanapalooza event of the day was Puzzle Day! Lana loves puzzles. We gave her a puzzle portrait with her favorite seven people on earth...her grand kids. We also outfitted her puzzle table with some of her favorite sweet treats: Good and Plenty, Smarties and Licorice. It was a 768 piece puzzle that we planned to work on all week. She had it finished by 10:00 the next morning. She isn't much for pacing herself.

We had some ping pong going on in one condo! We also managed to walk every morning we were at the beach. It was done early and was actually fun!

After exercising, waking kids, feeding kids, slathering people with sunscreen, finding goggles, boogie boards, towels, nets, etc....we would head on down to the beach.

It was quite a crowd. If I could only tell you how many times I counted seven heads. It was A LOT!

The waves were really ripping in on the first morning. The kids were thrilled. The lifeguards (that would be the parents!) were not so thrilled. It was a strong undertow and we were on high alert!

The kids battled the ocean for an hour or so and then were exhausted. It was work to ride a wave in and fight your way back out. I was so happy when we decided to head to the pool.

There was a ton of seaweed on the beach for some reason. A storm or something brought it in I guess. We recreated a picture we have from summers on the beach in Virginia with my grandma. A little seaweed under each arm and between your legs and someone grab a camera! Let's keep the family tradition going for another generation. Hopefully, one day my kids will be at the beach with their kids and fondly think of me and shove seaweed in their pits and privates. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

It was lovely to jump in a big pool to rinse off the ocean salt! We were a rowdy crowd as usual.

Here we are trying to compare who has the most tan legs. The Nice One lost this one. Totally came in last. She is white. I think young Hasselhoff won!

Here are the two oldest studs, Hasselhoff and Toby. They are acting like they are drying off, but I think they were really trolling for chicks behind their sunglasses.

Hubby wasn't letting anyone dry off on his watch. He had these two pose for a picture and promptly shoved them under when the camera clicked!

After a fun day in the sun and a yummy dinner the kids wanted to head over to the tennis court/basketball court.

The Penguin takes tennis lessons and plays in tournaments. He is remarkably good.

His older brother Chuck also is a wiz at the tennis! I am pretty sure he has trophies. They were slamming, jamming, backhanding and generally handling that racket like they knew what they were doing.

The Queen...not so much. She had only picked up a racket a couple of times before so it took her a while to warm up.

Chip also required some warming up. He really just treated the racket like a bat and hit the bejeez out of the ball. Keeping it between the lines was not his primary concern.

This is the before picture. We played and it was not good. Hubby also enjoys smacking the ball aggressively and I am more of a "Can't we just volley?" kind of player.

I just like to hit it back and forth, not kill myself running from one end of the court to the other. Besides, you shouldn't play tennis in flip flops. It is dangerous.

Bob got out there with me and with his knee replacement and broken rib, he was the perfect volley partner. Neither one of us wanted to move much. We set a record hitting it to each other six times. That doesn't seem that good, does it?

That wrapped up our first full day at the beach.

The next day dawned and we did it all over again. Coffee on the porch.

Bodies all over the living room.

Except today, we decided to check out the exercise room for our daily exercise.

I was doing some chest or back something or another. Don't you love how much I am learning with "Mr. Knowledge"? I obviously need to pay better attention.

Bob was in race mode on the stationary bike. He was a real threat to the other walkers on the treadmill. Some of them stopped and walked out. It is hard to compete with him.

I was watching Hubby's technique. Seeing if he could lift more than me. He could.

The Nice One isn't very familiar with the gym equipment, so the boys were giving her some tips. They were also trying to find her triceps. Not sure what the verdict was on that one.

My brother Guk was getting it on the elliptical. He put in a solid 30 minutes and we had yet to do our walk.

It was hard core.

Not exactly Muscle Beach, but we were moving and it was good.

Our Lanapalooza event for this day was Manicures/Pedicures for the girls. I didn't take my camera on this excursion but I should have! We went to Steamers for lunch and got steamed shrimp. There were also snow crab legs, scallops wrapped in bacon and other delicious things at our table.

Then we headed to the salon and got some pampering. The massage chair was sensational. I had that thing going up, down and all around. I was practically moaning out loud it felt so great! The pedicure wasn't bad either. I did wish that the little lady didn't have to pull out the big cheese grater for my feet. I was looking all over to see if they used that on any one else. No. I was the only cheese grater material in the building. There was a giant man just a few seats down from me. I didn't see them use the cheese grater on him. I should be embarrassed.

While we were out getting rubbed, scrubbed, grated and painted the boys had their own fun.